(edited by Andlat Helsonr.1284)
I got the same issue today. I find it rather odd the item even exists, considering there is a collection for Machined weapons.
Humm, maybe I was left with the wrong impression. Fair enough.
What? When does this happen? I played though the whole story and none of them died…
Where you chase after Faoline? Don’t you get to choose between having to go help Zojja or Logan? I did that mission yesterday, Zojja died.
A question regarding
So, now that we have either Logan or Zojja die, what is the canonical state of affairs? I suppose we will never see them or hear of them again in stories in the future, but they are kind of big-deal adventurers. Logan in particular is an important public figure. How do you think this will be handled?
I appreciate the sentiment behind this thread and understand the reasons behind your post. It is mostly anxiety that now that we got something cool and desirable, it will get taken away from us and nerfed to the ground.
Celestial signet has been around ever since the balance patch and, for the time being, they have left it alone. So A-net clearly wants the necromancer to have cool tools. I find it fairly funny that the necromancer forums are the only ones that have this type of a thread, though. I think it is just another display of the victim complex this community has developed over the past three years :p.
Chill, boys. We are in a good spot in PvP right now, and Reaper is going to branch us out into other viable playstyles. It is such a sidegrade compared to Chrono or Herald that I can not see what the panic is all about.
“For PvP purposes, the only big improvement of Reaper over base necro is the sustain it has through Blighter’s Boon for its sustain build.”
This has very little to no effect in 1v1 situations tho, and in those base Necro has far better sustain.
Indeed, I was taking about teamfight situations where teammates can spam boons on you.
For PvP purposes, the only big improvement of Reaper over base necro is the sustain it has through Blighter’s Boon for its sustain build. The condi and power DPS builds are good, but they are countered much more easily and are basically chronomancer food with their super high burst right now.
If they nerf Blighter’s Boon, we might as well play base celestial signet since it is a stronger 1 v 1er than reaper since it has better pressure, more transfers, and is harder to kite.
I wouldn’t care too much if they nerf the damage on gravedigger since I am not using GS in PvP due to how easily counterable it is by any player worth their salt, but it is our only distinguishing feature for PvE that could make us desirable in raids. This is why that I hope any nerfs to the skill’s damage will be split between the two game modes.
@ Robert / Karl
Any update please ? Would like to know what we can expect pre HOT
Have a good evening,
My guess would be that after the positive beta feedback it is in the same state as Revenant – pretty much ready for release, only getting minor tweaks here and there.
Berzerker felt much better this time around in comparison to the previous beta.
The build I played the most was the condition berzerker, and I really felt like I was playing a good version of a condition warrior. The animations felt really fluid, and I did not miss Discipline nearly as much as I would have expected. The mace f1 lets you dish out a respectable amount of conditions even if you are hitting a foe with stability on, and Bloody Roar’s taunt resulted in some cool moments.
I have mixed feelings about Torch. On one hand, it allows for some increased condition pressure and is a good way to get dire of some of the blocks in the game before following through with a combo. on the other, its damage feels a little underwhelming. Still, the rest of the Berzerker condi kit definitely made it capable of melting many opponents – perhaps not at burn guard speed, but with far more crowd control.
yep gun flame that skill. I believe it pierces too.
I hear that it is bugged and hits twice instead of once. As it stands, it hits harder than the normal rifle f1, has a bunch of additional effects, casts faster, recharges faster, and requires only 10 adrenaline.
I played some gunflame berzerker this beta and while it was quite funny for the first hour or two, it was blatantly overpowered.
here is a link to a video showcasing the skill in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=364N7-VAdlo .
I played Reaper for about 20 hours this beta, and I must say that it felt quite satisfying. I do not really have much to say in comparison to the first two BWEs, so I will keep it really brief.
Reaper Shroud Felt awesome as always. Entering it feels really impactful and really lets you catch your breath, which is something the necromancer sorely needed before. DS2 felt much better than before and actually let me catch up to some people. I would say that RS is good for release.
Greatsword Seems to be in an awesome spot for PvE. It has some issues in PvP related to players knowing all its animations by that point and avoiding whatever you throw at them. Its skills feel great when they connect, however, and it really brings necro up to other classes when it comes to competing for spots in PvE groups.
Shouts The elite finally feels like it has a reasonable CD and is usable in PvP. The utility traits all seem to have situations where they would be useful. I think that they are pretty much ready for shipping.
Traits After the last BWE’s tweaks the traits feel much better. Although I did not deviate from my usual reaper build much, I certainly see possible playstyles where different trait combos can be viable.
The main issue Reaper has in PvP right now is how easy it is to kite. Against experienced players you will find yourself unable to catch on whenever you enter Reaper Shroud since, they would just walk away, and unless you have swiftness on, you have to chase them down at normal combat speed. I am not really sure if I want to see that issue addressed since it is what makes the reaper balanced, powerful in teamfight situations, but easily kiteable and avoidable in 1 v 1 fights, but I figured I would point that out.
The more people learn our animations, the weaker Greatsword and Reaper Shroud will look. I believe that this is an important thing to consider when thinking about buffing/nerfing this elite spec.
In regards to classes which counter us, my hardest fights were against Heralds since even in marauder they would outsustain me, and Chronomancers, since they could kite me exceptionally well while still CCing me quite hard despite DS3. I also found myself quickly adopting the new axe in place of dagger, since the 900 range pressure helped against thieves and daredevils tremendously, and axe 3 is actually not a bad source of LF because of the retaliation procs.
All in all – I would say that Reaper is in a really good place – a bit on the strong side, but not crossing the line, a class I would pick in a group for all game modes, but would not be a mandatory element of it.
I played a ton of reaper over the past three betas. I clocked 20 hours just this one. I also played a bunch against reapers on Herald and Berserker in particular.
With every consecutive beta I’ve found it harder and harder to play the spec. People are adapting it is as simple as that. They now know to kite RS and dodge your key abilities.
In 1 v 1 it has a lot of trouble versus various opponents – anything with serious kiting capacities, as well as Herald are extremely tough to face.
In teamfights it is really solid, but its stability is nothing special and you can go through it quite quickly. Once you CC it, you can proceed to burst it down like a regular necro since it loses the shroud sustain from the auto. Gravity well in particular made my life hell.
It is strong to be sure, I have had great success with the class. But it also has weaknesses. overall, I think that it is in a good spot right now. You have to get used to its animations and play around its shroud, since if you do not, things will go poorly.
/endbiasednecrorant
(edited by Andlat Helsonr.1284)
Oh my God, yes. This all sounds so delicious. Robert Geesus truly is deserving of praise.
Question is: is self healing not considered damage absorbtion? Because if yes the biggest difference with death shroud is the focus on healing compared to the focus on “damage”, I would not consider it enough to justify the lack of utilities and ally healling.
1. You are spending the time healing yourself rather than applying pressure.
2. CC stops you from healing yourself if you get locked down while DS does it passively.It is a pretty big difference so DS definitely has the advantage there just for the passive nature of its damage mitigation.
Shroud is also more finite, our exchange for most defensive capabilities, and selfish. A druid’s healing is able to keep groups alive, not just themselves, and there are some offensive/defensive split mechanics in the mix, not necessarily all “damage” oriented, but offensive utility/pressure is not direct damage alone.
How is it more finite? Celestial form seems quite short in duration to me, and even if you are going to argue that if a necromancer is attacked by multiple foes then he can be kicked out of shroud really fast, you need to consider that if the same number of foes attack the druid it will not manage to get any healing off either because of the heavy CC spam.
The offensive capabilities of the celestial form are also really, really minute in comparison to shroud, which can be a huge DPS dealer I am not even going to go into its Reaper Shroud version, where it is also an amazing sustain tool.
I really do not believe that what Druid gets even competes with Death Shroud. In raids it might, I can not say anything for this game mode. But for PvE going into healer mode is a massive DPS loss and ultimately useless, in WvW the necromancer has been a dominant class for a long while and the near permanent shroud in zerg fights just further seals the deal, and in PvP the ranger will need to get pretty close into the fight and lock itself out of its evasion-based weapons in the middle of a team fight to be able to get some use out of it that is worth the hassle. It is much easier to be made useless than the HP sponge that is DS.
Question is: is self healing not considered damage absorbtion? Because if yes the biggest difference with death shroud is the focus on healing compared to the focus on “damage”, I would not consider it enough to justify the lack of utilities and ally healling.
1. You are spending the time healing yourself rather than applying pressure.
2. CC stops you from healing yourself if you get locked down while DS does it passively.
It is a pretty big difference so DS definitely has the advantage there just for the passive nature of its damage mitigation.
its a transform that builds on healing and attacking. The reverse of necromancer’s shroud which builds on death and skills. Death vs Life. its the reverse death shroud.
Conceptually, maybe. mechanically, DS gives you a defensive mechanism which also provides you with high pressure you can output. In Celestial form the druid focuses heavily on support with a sprinkle of CC, it lasts for much shorter than a fully-loaded shroud, and does not protect your main HP bar from damage. If you get stunlocked on a necromancer while you have shroud up, you can soak the hits in fine. If that happens on a Druid, you can not really use your heals to sustain the damage, leaving your HP pool wide open for more punishment.
The two function very differently. This is why I do not believe that one of them having utility skills available while the other does not is not a big deal. They have their pros and cons, with DS edging above since it is a main class mechanic. If anything is to be added to it, I think that it should be signet passives. Especially with Reaper coming out and needing that 25% speed increase to catch onto people.
Their mechanic is much more similar to the Berserk mode of warrior than to Death Shroud.
No it isn’t. Berserk doesn’t change your weapon skills.
Well, true. It only changes one of your skills depending on your weapon set.
This one has an engineer kit attached to it, but both lack the bonus damage soaking functionality, which is one of the most important mechanics DS brings to the table.
Their mechanic is much more similar to the Berserk mode of warrior than to Death Shroud.
I would have enjoyed it if they added a stealth reveal on “Nothing can Save You”, even at the cost of a higher CD. I feel like finding people who are trying to hide from you fits the theme of the Reaper, and it would give this skill a really unique application for the class.
Fighting chronomancers as a reaper is generally a bad idea. Eventually, they will win 1 v 1, especially if they decide to kite you even harder. Imagine how it would have went for you if he had decided to use the elevations on terrain to range you while you were trying to climb up, when he only needs to press staff 2. A good daredevil and a good chrono will be some of the toughest opponents for a reaper because of how much they can simply kite you while you flail around.
Why are people so concerned about losing 1s of stability that covers the 1s cast of the stun break ?
Exactly. The stability on this skill was there for the same reason the stability of Well of Power is there. To make sure you do not get CCd right after you used your stunbreak while still stuck in casting animation.
Overall excellent changes. As a necro I am worried that after so many buffs, we are just getting baited into the nerftrap! Over the past 3 years we have learned to be cautious :p .
The Chilled to the kittenecharge reduction will likely convince me to play it over Plague in many situations. Also, do you guys reckon the new model for the minion from Rise will be an unique one? I am quite curious.
The mesmer one is still there. But they unstickied the others. Still, do not get your hopes too high. I think they want to release the notes for all classes in the same time, and the Ele/DH ones took ages to come out last time.
Well, if they were to take the complaints of people to heart they could nerf blighter’s boon so that they address the “reaper is too tanky in teamfights” criticism, and then nerf RS1’s attack speed to address the “reaper deals too much damage and has too much sustain from autoing in RS” criticism. I do not believe that those nerfs are necessary but – we will see how it goes.
This whole thing reminds me of the time when people thought GS + axe/shield warriors were completely OP because they didnt know the tells and just got wasted. wait for a month or two at most, people will start recognizing the animation straight away.
Shroud 2 I think can be increased too 900 range without being op as a gap closer its not all that great atm I just use it for the projectile destruction.
I think that increasing its speed by a little bit would be better than increasing its range. We are meant to have some trouble closing gaps as a reaper, considering the pain we unleash once we do so. I also feel like there is some weird aftercast time after the animation is finished which makes the skill even clunkier as a chase tool.
Eh, as long as I watched out for their sword 3 and avoided hitting them when they had their dragon heal up, I was fine. I got my kitten handed to me the first several times, but I did not find them impossible to beat. My experience against them is fairly limited, though, so I might be completely off the mark.
Reaper sustainability due to bug. Blighters boon not the culprit. Reaper shroud melting when away from bugged terrain.
This, basicly on points with that terrain near by, everywhere else ingame RS melts off
Yes, even if you watch the VODs from Noscoc’s (The Abjured’s necromancer player) stream, you will see that there are some situations where he is caught off-guard or just pressured too heavily, which results in him being CCd to death. The more people learn about the spec, its animations and moments of vulnerability, the less OP it will seem.
Link to VODs mentioned http://www.twitch.tv/noscoc
Well, people report that our sustain is a bit too high, so we need a solution to this that doesn’t make the trait completely useless such as a flat 1s ICD.
You don’t mean that pvp forum thread where the main poster is a condi mesmer right?
Even Helseth posted on reddit, saying that having passive sustain as amazing as this on a DPS class is a bad design decision and it needs to be toned down if we want a healthy game. So it is not like only bad players with l2p issues are seeing the current iteration of Reaper as an issue.
I may read it wrong but he didnt say it is op perse. He said that the passive sustain/tankiness is bad for the game and should be more active (Essentially the same stance he has on PU mesmer).
Honestly i would be fine with having more active defenses on the reaper at the cost of the passive ones. But as it stands without mobility, blocks, invulnerabilites, evades etc. reaper kinda needs such “absurd” sustain/tankiness.
His post certainly seems to be greatly fluctuating in tone. But I am sure he wouldn’t want the reaper to be unviable. He just seems to dislike the type of survivability Reaper was given.
The only sensible nerf I can see though is to reduce the healing values to half, or even life siphon levels, based on Anet’s nerf and buff patterns. An ICD of any kind in really afraid would possibly ruin this trait, as it’s the first form of scaling defense we’ve had that’s worth a kitten . >_<. Sorry just REALLY hesitant but I do agree it is a bit….awesome when I can get 20%!LF from hitting 5 enemies with “yaaw” and get 20% LF. And then watching as my health refills while in shroud. I finally makes Shroud our other health bar rather than the second health bar. ;-;
If you just cut the healing value of the trait by half, you will make it much worse in 1 v 1 scenarios, while keeping it quite awesome in team scenarios. It would heal for 70-ish HP per boon, which turns into 40-50 HP whenever poisoned, which you can not really cleanse when in shroud. If we just slash the healing value by half we will hurt the reaper in 1 on 1 engagements, where it is not as scary since it is easily kiteable.
This is why I support the “activates three times every second” solution, since it encourages your teammates to use their boons more intelligently if they want to support you, while not hurting the reaper too much in 1 on 1 fights. Sure, you can hit the cap by yourself with a specific combination of traits, but I am fine with that.
You mean the same helseth who made a video at how mesmer scepter auto attack inflicting torment would ruin the game? Also what makes helseth more experienced with dealing with reapers?
He is a pro player who knows a lot about the game and high-tier PvP and is a really experienced necromancer? I agree he overreacts often, but his word means more than the one of random people on the PvP forums.
So maybe the problem is boon spam and blighter’s boon is just a sympton from it?
Maybe, but just nerfing one trait that goes out of whack becauseo f the boonspam is an easier and less time-consuming solution to the problem in comparison to addressing all the boonspam.
Traits
Elephant in the room
- BLIGHTER’S BOON – People say that this trait can scale out of whack when a lot of boons are spammed onto the necromancer, however I believe that giving it a 1s ICD would pretty much destroy the trait. I believe that it was ronpierce who originally suggested that the trait is given a “this effect can not occur more than three times over the span of one second” mechanic, which I believe would be a reasonable solution.
This will ruin the skill in a matter of seconds a blood is power -> 3 life force. Also reaper can cap this on its own for a while: chilling victory+sigil of strength+RS 3 for 8 seconds you are capped. No at best it needs number shavings (And I’m doubting about that one to) not a change in functionality, the guardin one works fine and guardian is a boon bot.
Also maybe there is too much AoE boon spam in PvP?
Edit: Added an afterthought.
Well, people report that our sustain is a bit too high, so we need a solution to this that doesn’t make the trait completely useless such as a flat 1s ICD.
The thing is though our sustain is only really high in situations where we are getting boon spammed, plus the bug in PvP with objects giving us LF. If we are by ourselves the only reliable boon generation we have is in the spite line.
Yes, I agree. But apparently getting spammed with boons in the middle of teamfights makes the reaper way too tanky. Hence the ICD implementation. If we see a nerf, I expect it to hit blighter’s boon and perhaps a scaling the LF gain from RS1 back to its BWE1 values. I obviously wish that does not happen but – what can you do?
Well, people report that our sustain is a bit too high, so we need a solution to this that doesn’t make the trait completely useless such as a flat 1s ICD.
You don’t mean that pvp forum thread where the main poster is a condi mesmer right?
Even Helseth posted on reddit, saying that having passive sustain as amazing as this on a DPS class is a bad design decision and it needs to be toned down if we want a healthy game. So it is not like only bad players with l2p issues are seeing the current iteration of Reaper as an issue.
Traits
Elephant in the room
- BLIGHTER’S BOON – People say that this trait can scale out of whack when a lot of boons are spammed onto the necromancer, however I believe that giving it a 1s ICD would pretty much destroy the trait. I believe that it was ronpierce who originally suggested that the trait is given a “this effect can not occur more than three times over the span of one second” mechanic, which I believe would be a reasonable solution.
This will ruin the skill in a matter of seconds a blood is power -> 3 life force. Also reaper can cap this on its own for a while: chilling victory+sigil of strength+RS 3 for 8 seconds you are capped. No at best it needs number shavings (And I’m doubting about that one to) not a change in functionality, the guardin one works fine and guardian is a boon bot.
Also maybe there is too much AoE boon spam in PvP?
Edit: Added an afterthought.
Well, people report that our sustain is a bit too high, so we need a solution to this that doesn’t make the trait completely useless such as a flat 1s ICD.
I believe that this is the BWE feedback thread with the most posts in it, so I will leave my thoughts here.
Reaper Shroud
Except for the random behaviour of RS2, this felt excellent. While I was still getting burst down in PvP, I felt like I had a real chance to survive and recover in a teamfight and then punch back. It was a feeling I was severely missing as base necro. It was quite competent in 1 v 1 scenarios, too, but was extremely weak against good kiters, which I believe is a fair balance. Even after the bugfix Infusing Terror is quite potent and allows the Reaper to avoid some ragdolling, at least for a little while.
Greatsword
In PvE it felt excellent, perhaps giving us a chance to -not- be a completely unwanted class for dungeons. It felt extremely satisfying to smack a boss good with some nice gravediggers.
In PvP it felt way more useful than last time around, and while I can see it decrease in usefulness once people learn to watch out for its animations, I believe that it has some fun tools to use both defensively and offensively.
- The LF gain on auto made it much easier to sustain shroud while trying to keep up the pressure output with the weapon, not having to rely on GS3 to hit for us to gain some shroud improved the experience dramatically.
- The 50% boost to gravedigger made this ability the staple skill it deserved to be – it is the Necromancer’s 100 blades. Excellent change.
- Death Spiral – the increased cone made the experience with this skill much less frustrating.
- Nightfall – A range indicator would be more than welcome, but other than that, this skill is incredibly good utility.
- Grasping Darkness – The animation and hitbox feel a little clunky. Sometimes I hit targets I should have, sometimes I miss targets I should not. Most of the times it does its job, however, and is quite good for what it is. I would say keep it at its current range – the reaper should be fairly limited in this capacity.
Traits
Elephant in the room
- BLIGHTER’S BOON – People say that this trait can scale out of whack when a lot of boons are spammed onto the necromancer, however I believe that giving it a 1s ICD would pretty much destroy the trait. I believe that it was ronpierce who originally suggested that the trait is given a “this effect can not occur more than three times over the span of one second” mechanic, which I believe would be a reasonable solution.
Adept
- AUGURY OF DEATH – I am just not the biggest fan of shouts, and believe that Relentless Pursuit is a mandatory trait for PvP, thus I never really played with this trait. Perhaps people might be interested in taking it for PvE if a shout or two become strong for that game mode.
- CHILLING NOVA – I do not see this trait as becoming really popular. Perhaps it will be useful for some all-in chill builds, but since Chill Reaper is not a viable option right now, I doubt that this will see much use.
- RELENTLESS PURSUIT – Absolutely mandatory in PvP. If you do not take that trait, you are likely not going to have a fun time.
Master
- CHILLING FORCE – Excellent for PvP due to its synergy with other tools of the reaper, and an excellent reward for managing to maintain chill on foes.
- DECIMATE DEFENSES – Excellent for PvE, allows you to make sure that the main source of your DPS, Gravedigger, will crit.
- SOUL EATER – For PvE – once you get to the point where you can spam Gravedigger, you do not really care about the quicker recharge of other abilities. For PvP – you rarely manage to land enough attacks to make it worthwhile, and will probably get better sustain for yourself through the chilling force combo with Blighter’s boon.
Grandmaster
- DEATHLY CHILL – not the biggest fan, this is definitely by far the worst grandmaster trait we possess. Unless the damage is really quite something, the other two options just outclass it.
- REAPER’S ONSLAUGHT – excellent in PvE for obvious reasons. Quite reasonable in PvP, especially when combined with Dhuumfire. If Blighter’s Boon gets nuked, I will run to this trait instead and hope for the best.
In Conclusion
Aside from some minor issues and some number tweaking work with the traits – I believe that Reaper is good for shipping. I have not had so much fun with an MMO character for a long, long time, and I believe that Robert and Co have done a fantastic job with it.
This beta, just like last one, I had a blast. I must say that I am really happy with how GS turned out for PvE, and how sustainable and impactful RS feels for PvP.
I wonder how similar Reaper will be to the treatment Necromancers received between the original Beta Weekends and release. If the cycle repeats itself, I will be a sad panda.
I’ve got one move that’s garunteed to work against all Reaper builds: stay further than 600 range away. Reaper’s got nothing he can do then.
Pretty much this. It is like reverse Longbow ranger – you want to keep the gap as wide-open as possible. It has the worst gap closer options period out of any melee spec out there, so it is a pretty solid counter.
I went Soldier this past BWE, and I have to say, even though it does less damage than other builds, it still hits fairly hard and can survive a burst to then keep doing damage. I think tankier is definitely the way to go with Reaper, to be honest
I did not say it is bad by any means. I agree that tanky is the way Reapers need to be built to work. What I am saying is that the damage they output as a soldier is reasonable considering their weaknesses.
If we assume that Reaper is powerful enough to warrant nerfs and needs to be taken down in he sustain and damage departments, then what are we left with in the end? Being so powerful and sustainable is what we gain for being so easily kited and being so immobile.
I played reaper for many hours this beta, and let me tell you – a well-coordinated team can still burst you down just fine if you are playing with Cele amulet, it will be a bit harder if you are running soldiers, but then you will be doing really low damage. In either case – it is nothing unseen. It is strong to be sure, maybe we need to see some limitation to Blighter’s boon since this seems to be the target of people right now. But, to be honest, knowing our history, people will cry until we get nerfed into unviability, or until enough time passes for them to come to grips with the existence of reaper and figure out how to play around it.
I can not wait to see what tweaks we will see after this BWE, but I certainly hope that even if we get shaved a bit, we will still be viable. I feel like we are really close to being unviable if too much gets nerfed, and we will be a laughing stock as people nuke us the moment we get in melee. We will have to wait and see, I suppose.
We can’t be too good at keeping up to people, considering if we’re able to constantly stick to people we have a spammable AoE that makes backstab look like a toothpick. Just make our current options a bit more reliable, primarily GS5, and GS3 needs to be a bit longer range.
Pretty much this. We are absolutely devastating up-close now, so if we want to keep that theme, we need a weakness. As it stands, being kited is that weakness. I would love to see a CD reduction on GS5 so that we have more opportunities to grab people over, but, to be honest, considering how monstrous we are in teamfights, it would not be the end of the world if Reaper was shipped in its current state.
Watch the live stream again, we are supposed to get better the more enemies we fight. It’s not a flaw it’s a feature.
Scaling is with teammates, not enemies. Everyone gets better with more teammates… Reapers just get more-better!
Pretty much this. Tempest is fantastic in a team because their abilities affect more people.
Reaper just gets more powerful because other peoples abilities affects them. It makes a massive difference when you 1v1’ed a Reaper and danced circles around him, then when you catch the same reaper off position in a team fight you couldn’t even put a dent.
The problem isn’t the concept, the problem is there is nothing that slows down their defense spike from Blighters Boon and there is no way to counter it as their defense spike is because of their allies, not them.
It has still been handled horribly wrong. I’m not sure if people realize it, but a 1 sec ICD would absolutely DESTROY any possible use of this, unless they basically tripled the benefits, holding on to the 1 sec ICD.
Ideally, so there’s still some scaling, there’d be like a 3 per second cap, which allows it to stay roughly the same solo, still get some boosts in teams, but not exceed 30% LF even in ideal situations (, granted even then it’d probably be closer to 22-25 given time fluctuations). Any more than that you’re just burying it.
A 3-per-second cap sounds quite good to me. It basically means it can not get more than 3% LF or ~450ish HP per second n an ideal situation, while not destroying the trait and turning it into an even worse version of Unholy Sanctuary. I’d be down with that.
Getting kited as a reaper? Shroud 5, then 2. Boom, frost aura, now catch whoever is causing you problems and proceed to apply perma chill.
It is easier to catch people as a reaper than a necromancer.The problem with blighters boon is it’s very situational based thanks to the no ICD. It can underperform based on your team comp or it can make you unbeatable.
- Increase the effects but give it an ICD. I don’t care if reapers heal or gain life force faster but it becomes an issue when your team capitalize on it.
- Change it to only trigger in combat. Obvious reasons is obvious.
Boom, you closed 600 range. Now what? It is easier to catch people than it is to do so as necromancer, but you have a 1200 range high damage attack as a necromancer in the form of your DS1. It is easy to dodge, but it still forces enemies into playing defensive.
As a reaper, your ranged pressure is gone. You can catch someone on a point but as soon as they use some elevation or stay at a larger range from you, you are done for. Merely looking at your gapclose options in comparison to those of other melee classes should be sufficient to understand how you are fairly limited in your selection.
Now, do not get me wrong, I do not want more gapclose options. I am alright with having a weakness. I just do not want the strength of the spec to be taken away because people do not wish to play differently against it as they would against a regular necro.
I understand that it can be frustrating that you have to take another class into account now instead of steamrolling through it, but at least give it a chance. Calling it the “next DD ele” is absolutely ridiculous as well, considering how much less mobile it is and how much lower its damage output it. Not to mention that it is far more vulnerable to focus. But this is an entirely different discussion that is meant for another thread.
I can agree that decreasing its teamfight effectiveness might be a good idea. I hope that they do not make it too terrible when used by a solo reaper, though.
Blighter’s Boon should probably get a 1 second interval or internal cooldown. And maybe it shouldn’t work out of combat. Otherwise, reaper seems fine to me.
Also, reaper has a lot of boon application if you’re spite. It’s all might, but it’s still a lot of boon application for Blighter’s Boon.
No, no, no, no, no x100000. Putting an ICD would make the trait near worthless and would ruin it. And the fact we can finally generate LF out of combat and near the start of the game is a huge HUGE plus for us. Imagine if the Ele started a fight locked out of his attunements, a guardian without his Virtues, a thief with no initiative. That’s what necros have been having to put up with since launch. This finally allows us to use our class mechanic at the beginning of the fight, where as beforehand, it is so easy to focus us down because SHROUD IS OUR ONLY DEFENSE. We don’t have blocks or extra evades, or reflects, or projectile destruction, or stability in base necro. So it was easy for us to be focused down in a team fight because our defensive mechanic is just not there.
I’m fine if they want to nerf the values a little bit, like hell, even 1/2 to 3/4 of what it is now. But putting an ICD on BB is not a good idea.
I would be alright if they lower the HP gain by a quarter or a third. More than that would be an overkill, though, since we have no condi removal in shroud and poison would completely shut the trait down. If its current value is ~130 and we bring it down to 100 or 90, poison would bring it down to 60-70 heal per boon, which I would say is reasonable. Maybe if they do it for last beta we will have time to test. What I am afraid of, however, is that we are extremely weak against ranged classes and have nearly no tools to deal with kiting. So if they drop out sustain really low, we would be pretty screwed.
To be honest, I do not feel all that tanky. Even against a single shatterspike mesmer, even if I am running soldier amulet, I take a ton of punishment. The initial reaction might be provoked by the fact that some locations in PvP provide life force when struck, thus increasing the feeling of tankiness.
The reaper is pretty tanky and devastating when up-close, but whenever you face a good kiter, you are done for since you have no options to catch up to them. I believe that this is fine and an acceptable weakness for a spec which can offer so much up-close. If we nerf its sustain and ability to receive damage, it is going to be just a suboptimal power necro.
I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.
Why wouldnt we run shout? They seem quite awesome, doing damage, giving buffs, debuffing the enemy and reducing CD based on # of targets hit. On paper at least they sound great
In PvP I value Relentless Pursuit higher as a trait since it allows us to stick to targets really tightly, so I do not believe that Augury of Death is worth taking in that spot. In addition, I can not see myself taking more than two shouts as my 6-10 skills, since I believe that we have much better options for those slots.
I am not saying that shouts are completely unviable and shout builds will not work, I just believe that the necromancer’s role of a heavy debuffer is really valuable and I do not believe that overcommiting to a shout support playstyle would be worth it. Of course, I could be completely wrong on that one, it really all depends on how the meta swings, but at least for the current PvP reality, signets and wells are really good utility options, and the shout heal is nothing special.
I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.
PvE – for the current meta, dagger/wh+GS. use D/WH until the enemy is at 50%, then go to GS and spam some diggers. I believe that after the 50% boost to digger, this will be the best option.
PvP – I am not sure if I would even bother with GS. I feel like any half-decent player will completely negate the weapon’s strengths with blinds/dodges/rupts. I favour staff + D/WH there for the LF gen, utility, and more frequent attacks.
As of this moment, reaper’s shroud is fine. I am a bit concerned that it needs to be tied to reaper’s onslaught to be really competitive, but otherwise it isn’t that bad at all. With onslaught the shroud AA is as strong as the swords AA, which is weaker than the dagger. So if you were expecting shroud to be uber burst mode, it won’t be.
There are a couple of things to consider, though, which is why at its current DPS it is fine.
#1: Reaper Shroud is not exclusive with any weapon. You can take both, so there isn’t actually a “loss” here.
#2: Reaper’s Shroud gives a layer of protection via life force, so it is effectively a defensive bubble with minute damage loss. This alone makes it worth using.
#3: Reaper’s Shroud gets a whole ton of buffs from different traits. During the previous Beta, I experimented with a shroud build that had Rending Shroud, Reaper’s Might, Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence, Dhuumfire, and Decimate Defenses in full zerker. The thing was insane. It self-stacked 25 might, doled out 25 AoE Vulnerability, burned with every auto, could stay in shroud form for well over a minute, and this was back when onslaught was bugged.
The only disadvantage to Reaper Shroud is that necros don’t have good ranged power options, and Life Blast previously held this position.
in pve it’s so-so, but in pvp players will not stand still to hit them and stack burn, vuln, might etc, and if you get targeted from more than 1-2 players your shroud might not hold out for 3s. they gave the ability to stack might+vuln so that you do some descent dmg, otherwise the dmg is trash. and imo with 25might-25vuln the dmg is way too low. also while in shroud you can’t use utilities. why? this has to get tweaked and we be able to use utilities in shroud
I tested Reaper in PvP for the majority of my time in the beta. I must say that with a soldier/celestial amulet, this thing is a monster in 1 v 1 fights, since it has pretty decent damage either way, and the burning from dhuumfire along with the poison from RS4 provide good pressure condis for when your foes pop something like defy pain. The sustain provided by just spamming auto in reaper shroud was also quite welcome, for you could pop the form and heal up a bit while waiting for a thief to come out of hiding.
A marauder Reaper was not all that hot, however. I did not feel like it was threatening enough to warrant such a lack in defense, since a marauder warrior could just do the same job better. I kind of felt like that was by design, since they want the Reaper to be more of a brawler in sPvP and less of a “carry”. My experience is strictly limited to 1 v 1, unfortunately, since this is what I spend all of my time doing, so take what I am saying with a spoon of salt. I only played several unranked games where I found the reaper to perform quite well, but I have no idea how it would function in actual high-tier sPvP.
Buring way to strong seconded. I thought RS shroud was ok dmg it just needed all the quality of life stuff it should be getting before bwe2. The main difference is the stability oh my lord the stability finally combined with nightfall from gs and I could finally get some stomps.
Apparently our stability is getting nerfed, it wasn’t functioning right and the cooldown wasn’t getting set unless you shattered the armor. Still, you’re right though it is nice.
It will basically make our CD up to 8 seconds longer, depending on how long we wait for before we shatter the armor. It was quite broken in the beta since we, if traited, had stability on a 9 second cooldown.